


But Not The Anime

by TheSwingbyJeanHonoreFragonard



Category: Stray Kids (Band)
Genre: Drabble, Friendship, Humor, M/M, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-07
Updated: 2020-11-07
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:28:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,457
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27425737
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSwingbyJeanHonoreFragonard/pseuds/TheSwingbyJeanHonoreFragonard
Summary: Best friends Hyunjin and Felix bleach each other's hair.
Relationships: Hwang Hyunjin & Lee Felix
Comments: 7
Kudos: 84





	But Not The Anime

The two of them are twenty minutes into the process when Hyunjin whines, “Yours is  _ sooooo _ totally lighter than mine!”

“Dude, it’s been like ten minutes!” When Felix had last glanced into the mirror, his hair had been a weird, coppery orange and he could still see streaks of the black they’d started with.

Hyunjin goes, “I swear, I mixed this batch better than the last one.”

Felix rolls his eyes. “Dude, all you had to do was shake the bottles.”

“Ugh. Yours is already so light, though.”

“Duh, I went first.” Felix sits up off of the stool so that he can get a better look at the mirror Hyunjin is holding in front of his face. He turns his head one way and then the other. It’s hard to tell the difference in anything because of how washed out he looks beneath the LED lights in Hyunjin’s bathroom. But beneath all the weird suds, he can see how much lighter his hair has gotten now. “Dude, the timer hasn’t gone off yet. We haven’t even rinsed it out yet. We haven’t even put that weird purple conditioner in yet. Yours will get this light too.”

“Who says,” Hyunjin huffs. He leans forward, presses his temple to Felix’s temple so that he can compare how yellow the bleach has gotten their hair. “See? It’s lighter by a little bit.”

Felix squints but he can’t make out much of a difference. Well. No. Hyunjin’s hair still has a noticeably orange tint, but that’ll fade with another twenty or so minutes. Of course Felix’s hair would be slightly closer to platinum. Hyunjin did Felix’s hair first, squirting glob after glob of bleach onto his gloved hands and aggressively rubbing the concoction through Felix’s hair while the new Ariana Grande album blared through the Bluetooth speakers. It had taken all the way up to Nasty for Hyunjin to empty the bottle onto Felix’s hair, but only because he stopped every few seconds to shake his ass and try his absolute best to hit a whistle note. Then they had switched roles, Hyunjin on the stool and Felix circling around him, and it was Felix’s turn to smear bleach globs onto Hyunjin’s longer, thicker hair. So, technically, Felix’s hair had gotten a twenty-something minute head start but explaining that to Hyunjin won’t get him anywhere. He has to play the game on Hyunjin’s level. “Do you want to bleach yours again? We’ve still got a little bit left in the packet.”

Hyunjin pulls away. He holds the mirror above his head to check the progress of the bleaching. “Won’t it fall out if we bleach it back to back?”

“Isn’t that if you try to dye it after you bleach it?”

“No. I thought it fell out if you tried to straighten it?”

“I don’t know. You’re the one with the instructions!”

Now it’s Hyunjin’s turn to roll his eyes. “Ugh. Fine. I'll look.” He sits up straight, walks around the stool and glares at the absolute calamity that is the bathroom counter. It’s messy and disorganized even on a good day because Hyunjin has about ten products for his hair and double that for his skin. And he suffers through the side effects of that chaos as he knocks things over to find the folded packet of instructions that came with the bleach kit. Felix watches him and can’t help but smile fondly at his best friend. It’s Friday and tonight was supposed to be a chill night where they did nothing more strenuous than call in a pizza but when Hyunjin had spontaneously dumped two L’Oreal bleach kits into Felix’s shopping basket when they’d only gone to Target for moscato and face masks, the entire tone of the night had shifted. Now shampoo bottles and combs and squeezed-out tubes litter the counter. A wash cloth that used to be solid blue but now has pinkish-orange streaks in the vague shape of handprints because Hyunjin forgot that they were dealing with  _ bleach _ hangs over the edge of the sink, wet and ruined.

“We should have gone to the salon,” Felix grunts.

“We can’t.” 

“Because we’re broke?”

“No. Do you know how badly  _ real _ bleach burns my scalp?”

“This is real bleach,” Felix tells him.

“I mean  _ reeeeeeal _ bleach,” Hyunjin reiterates. “The kind the professionals use. Not this weak shit.” He gestures to his orange-yellow hair. “The real stuff sets my scalp on fire. I learned my lesson way back. Last time I tried… like… What was it? Two years ago? Minho didn’t believe me when I told him I was dying. Why didn’t he take my screaming seriously?” Hyunjin finally finds the folded-up instructions beneath a vat of Vaseline. The sheets are nearly illegible because of how much splattered bleach made it to the page. “Ooh, these words are  _ tiny _ .” And that’s all he needs to know to give up on reading it. “Let’s just dump more bleach on top. Get up.”

Felix slides off the stool. At least Hyunjin had given him an old, faded shirt and worn-out sweats to put on. He hadn’t planned on tonight being so hazardous and had initially dressed to impress-but-not-really-impress Hyunjin’s roommate Seungmin. A roommate who isn’t even here tonight. Felix grabs the bottle of bleach and shakes it until he gets the last little bit onto his gloved palm.

He’s no cosmetologist. That’s Minho. So he just rubs the foamy cream between his palms and smears it across Hyunjin’s head. He makes sure to detangle with his fingers as he goes, lingering on the spots behind Hyunjin’s ears and near the nape of his neck where the hair is noticeably brassier, more orange, probably from where Felix missed those spots earlier. God. He hopes it will all even out as they wait for the timer.

“Hey, why are we bleaching our hair,” Felix asks, about half an hour too late for it to fucking matter.

Hyunjin turns a little to look him in the eye. “Just felt like it.” He grins.

What a typical Hyunjin answer.

“Just felt like it, huh?”

“Hey, I got my ears pierced with you because you just felt like getting your ears pierced.” Hyunjin lifts his hand to rub at his eye but then luckily remembers he’s got on bleached-covered gloves. He lowers his hand before he goes blind.

“That’s different. I had scheduled that appointment like a week and a half in advance. You invited yourself.”

“But hey, now we match!”

Felix continues to rub his fingers over Hyunjin’s head, trying to keep the bleach evenly distributed. Gosh. He should get the roots right in front, shouldn’t he? Right along the hairline. He got those already, didn’t he? He still sees flecks of black. Uh oh. 

“Really,” Hyunjin continues. “I’ve just… always wanted to. You know? To bleach my hair. I just wanted to do it with my best friend. So I wouldn’t be as scared.”

“Awww,” Felix coos. Like he’s just watched a puppy do something adorable. “So this has absolutely nothing to do with Chan saying he likes blondes?”

Hyunjin jumps up off of the stool, so quickly that he nearly knocks the thing over. “Oh, hey, the album stopped playing. Let me go find my phone.” He’s already halfway out of the bathroom door.

“Uh huh. Right.” Felix calls after him. He can’t help but grin, though. Hyunjin has had the cutest crush on Minho’s roommate since the summer.

“I still think Dangerous Woman is her best album,” Hyunjin shouts from down the hall. “And I will fight your mom on that one.”

“I don’t know,” Felix chuckles. “I think Swee-”

“Don’t you _dare_ disagree,” Hyunjin interrupts.

Felix giggles and looks at himself in the mirror. He’s never bleached his hair before but, already, he kinda likes the way that it looks? He looks like a fairy? Like a dryad or something. He gasps as he comes up with a way to get Hyunjin’s blood pressure up. “Oh hey,” he calls out over the music. “Chan’s calling me!”

“Your phone’s in the living room, dumbass,” Hyunjin shouts back, full of love. “I’m looking right at it.” Then he immediately retaliates. “Hey, Seungmin. Why’d you bring food? We ordered a pizza.”

Ha! Felix won’t be so easily fooled. He heads towards the bathroom door, ready to fondly tell Hyunjin to go suck a dick, but the moment he rushes out into the hall, he bodily collides with- “Seungmin!” And even Felix is shocked by how high and pitchy he shrieks out the name. “Holy shit!” He leaps backwards into the bathroom and slams the door shut in embarrassment.

All he can hear from the other side of the wood is Hyunjin’s delighted cackling.


End file.
